The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

"Ofcom has rarely punished establishment British media outlets for “bias” even though the British media is notoriously and slavishly loyal to the state and other British political and financial elites." (thanks Amir)

Are you aware that all Arab reporters and correspondents (with the exception of the Lebanese propagandists of Saudi princes who write in English in the US) only refer to Netanyahu as Nitin-yahu (Nitin means filthy in Arabic)?

There is a grotesque ad by the grotesque poseur, Elie Wiesel, in the Washington Post. How come no one commented on the anti-Iranian racism in the ad, which begins by talking about an ancient "wicked Persian". Imagine if such an ad was written about the Jewish people. So basically, Wiesel is arguing that all Iranians--not only the regime--are wicked and have to be destroyed.

"On the surface, there is not much that commends Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An anti-Semite, he has frequently questioned the Holocaust and defamed Israel in despicable terms. As a conspiracy theorist, he endlessly weaves strange tales about the United States and its intentions. " (thanks Basim)

"The conclusion from this history is inescapable. Over the course of more than 20 years, Benjamin Netanyahu has made false claims about nuclear weapons programs in both Iran and Iraq, inventing imaginary timelines for their development, and making public statements that contradicted the analysis of his own intelligence advisers.Despite this, he continues to be treated by lawmakers and media figures as a credible voice on this issue.When Netanyahu gives his address to Congress, he can likely be counted on to say much the same things he’s been saying for the past two decades about an impending Iranian nuclear threat, and credulous pundits and politicians can be counted on to believe him." (thanks Regan)

I saw a picture of the two delegations. There was only one woman in the picture: in the Iranian delegation. And she was not an interpreter. (She is the spokesperson of the Iranian foreign minister, Mardiyyah Afkham). Yet, US media praise the Saudi regime if they allow a woman to serve as a shop owner.

Lebanese-Maltese singer, Samirah Tawfiq, ends her decades-long absence and appears on New TV in Lebanon. This is not accidental: it happened weeks after the death of Saudi King `Abdullah. She is now free.

"Rather than call for reform of the French secular and Catholic educational system, John Bowen suggests that France might stop the radicalization of its Muslim prison population through chaplaincy. While this is an important goal, Bowen’s own analysis shows that more urgently needed is an educational, political, and juridical effort targeting the majority of French Catholics and secularists, inside and outside the prison system, who, with relative impunity, express anti-Muslim racism, inflict legal and illegal discrimination, and commit violence against French Muslims.

Indeed the most important task today is to limit the radicalization of these French citizens and state agents, a large number of whom seem to have become, with the encouragement of the state and official discourse, anti-immigrant, right-wing bigots. Recent polls in France show that the National Front’s Marine Le Pen, the most vocal and vulgar opponent of French Muslims, would be elected president if elections were held today. The ongoing discrimination against Muslims; the “apartheid” system, as described by Prime Minister Valls, under which they live; the hysterical, racist public and private discourse about them in the media and in official pronouncements; and the limited legal remedies available to combat this state of affairs—these are the problems that demand immediate redress."

Monday, March 02, 2015

"Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich, a Republican candidate for governor, died on Thursday in an apparent suicide after he went public with allegations that rivals in the GOP planned to mount an anti-Semitic ‘whisper campaign” about his Jewish heritage.

The suicide came minutes after he called the Associated Press to accuse John Hancock, the head of the Missouri Republican Party. of making anti-Semitic comments about him.

Schweich was a churchgoing Episcopalian but his grandfather was Jewish."

"It’s very hard for Sunnis to say, today, ‘Let’s go and fight ISIS militarily,’ when you also have, let’s say, the Assad regime killing hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims, or Iran and its forces in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon also attacking Sunnis at the same time. In a world where a lot of people are attacking Sunnis, it’s hard for Sunnis to say ‘ISIS is the only bad group.’”" So in other words, fighters of ISIS would have been secular leftists if it was not for Maliki and Hizbullah.

From Amir: ""Sir Jimmy always said he had berated the Israeli Cabinet in 1975 for being too soft after the Six Day War. The bling-loving Leeds-born presenter of Jim'll Fix It and Top of the Pops, who once described himself as "the most Jewish Catholic you will ever meet," was a strong supporter of Israel and through fun runs, marathons and personal appearances, raised funds for many charities including WIZO, Ravenswood, and the British Friends of the Laniado Hospital in Netanya."

"“We have captured some U.S. citizens in undercover activities, espionage, trying to win over people in towns along the Venezuelan coast,” he said, adding that one was a U.S. pilot taken in the convulsed border state of Tachira. “In Tachira we captured a pilot of a U.S. plane (who is) of Latin origin (carrying) all kinds of documentation,” Maduro said, without offering details.

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Caracas said he was unable to comment, citing a lack of any official diplomatic communication with the Venezuelan government." Since well do US embassy spokespeople are reluctant to comment? I find this to be quite interesting.

"Netanyahu’s English is fluid, conversational, persuasive and often blunt." Persuasive? Persuasive? Only to Zionists like the Post. When did he ever persuade a non-Zionist or an anti-Zionist? He preaches well to the Zionist converted.

I hate this obsession with the personal lives of members of Karl Marx's family in Western anti-communist media. They are obsessed with the lives of Karl Marx's daughters only to take cheap shots at Marx.

There is no accountability in US media. If there is, someone would expose the terrible reporting by Liz Sly and David Ignatius who, at the prodding of US officials, would simply promote the "moderate Syrian rebel group de jour" and laud its leader as the best hope--for US--since Pope John Paul II. Sly has yet another superficial article about the demise of Hazm and attribute the demise to this: "But Hazm and other moderate groups that later received the weapons complained that the quantities were insufficient to make a difference in the fight against the government." So if they were given larger quantities those quantities would have landed, yet again, in the arms of Nusrah, as was the case yesterday with the takeover of the warehouses at Fawj 46 headquarters. Forget about the lousy reporting of Sly, read this informative piece in As-Safir about the demise of Hazm. There is more to the story about members and leaders "vetted" by CIA, as Sly tells it. It is also revealed that one of the founders of Hazm, Abu Jalal Shalluh had previously pledged allegiance to both: the leaders of Nusrah and Baghdadi himself of ISIS. But when Western weapons and aid rushed in, he discarded the religious garb and temporarily became--you guessed it--a moderate.

"So far, 30 Democrats — four senators and 26 representatives — have said they will not attend the speech. Nearly half are African-Americans, who say they feel deeply that Mr. Netanyahu is disrespecting the president by challenging his foreign policy. But a half-dozen of those Democrats planning to stay away are Jewish, and represent 21 percent of Congress’s Jewish members."

Sunday, March 01, 2015

"Muslims experienced harassment in nearly as many European countries (32 of 45) as Jews. By comparison, the Middle East and North Africa was the only region where Muslims faced more widespread harassment, dealing with hostility in 15 of that region’s 20 countries. In Germany, bloody pig heads were found at a site where the Ahmadiyya Muslim community was planning to build Leipzig’s first mosque. And in Ireland, several mosques and Muslim cultural centers received threatening letters, with one of the letters stating: “Muslims have no right to be in Ireland.”"

It is hilarious: early on in the Syrian war, Barnard was at pains to tell readers that Syrian rebels are all moderate and secular and very nice. In this article she cites a US-based academic without telling readers that he is a...US-based academic: "“A tragedy and catastrophic loss for Iraqi history and archaeology beyond comprehension,” Amr al-Azm, a Syrian anthropologist and historian, called the destruction on his Facebook page".

"Libya's internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said his government would stop dealing with Turkey because it was sending weapons to a rival group in Tripoli so that "the Libyan people kill each other"."

From Jerome: "Adil Charkaoui grilled on TV in Quebec about ISIS because one student who is suspected to have travelled to Syria attended two classes of his islamic school and on the school's website there was a link to one specific work on "Kitab" a virtual library that hosts radical books among thousands of other books. Ridiculous journalism which would make Fox News proud."

"Kuwait, the only semi-democracy in the Gulf, has long had the most open media, but its position also has worsened significantly." For that, Freedom House invented the category of "partially free". (thanks Basim)

"The doubts about the US effort to eliminate IS have several roots. The omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of them. Iraqis, like their fellow Arabs, feel that the United States has consistently favored Israeli interests over Arab interests for more than six decades."

"McCain pointed to the 1980’s Soviet war in Afghanistan as a success story of what happens when the US commits weapons in a proxy war against the Russians." "In the case of Afghanistan, the consequences, which have been widely and exhaustively reported, were the rise of the Taliban and decades of war, and over 13 years of a US military campaign against the very same people that the Pentagon covertly armed in the 1980’s—militants who included Osama Bin Laden himself." (thanks Amir)

"Still, I don’t think Americans who have donated trees would feel too good after meeting some of the displaced Bedouin, and the tree-planting raises larger questions: Particularly at a time of hard-line Israeli leadership, how can foreigners support Israel without inadvertently oppressing Arabs?" (thanks David)

Usually, in the Middle East media, you stop reading a story if it cites a "Kuwaiti" newspaper. "The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday". But they have in turn other sources: "The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry".

Weekly Standard: "The prime minister of Israel, speaking on behalf of not only his country and millions of Jews, but on behalf of the West itself". So if one were to criticize the prime minister of Israel, one is certainly anti-Semitic AND anti-Western?

Saturday, February 28, 2015

"Israel’s Shin Bet rearrested Golani Druze Sedki al-Maket (age 48). Until his release in 2012 (Hebrew), he’d been the longest serving Israeli security prisoner, having spent 27 years detained. News of his arrest is under gag order by Israeli media. The gag is laughable since the arrest has been reported not only by Syrian media, but in a Hebrew Facebook post.

Though Israeli security services haven’t offered any reason for his arrest, it’s likely they’re angered because a week ago he followed Syrian rebels to a meeting inside Israeli-occupied territory. The rebels met with IDF forces who’ve previously been shown to receive logistical and intelligence support from Israel in previous reports here and in Israel and foreign media. Al Maket filmed a video while the meeting was underway, in which he described what he saw and offered it to Syrian TV. It was aired to the entire nation and likely monitored by Israeli security." (thanks Sami)

"A child who died in a combat operation: $2,414. These are among the payments that the United States has made to ordinary Afghans over the course of American military operations in the country, according to databases covering thousands of such transactions obtained by The Intercept under the Freedom of Information Act." "Some family members received as little as $100 for the death of a relative."

"Two Jewish Defence League UK thugs were today found guilty of assault after they attacked a panel at a Palestine literary festival in September." "Simons said today: “This was fascist, Zionist thuggery … they’re driven, they’re messianic, it’s their own strange jihad. A prison sentence, if they get one, will be like a badge in scouts or girl guides. If I didn’t help the prosecution, when they do it next time there wouldn’t be a record – and there probably will be a next time.” " (thanks Amir)

"The dispute has taken on rancorous partisan tones with over two dozen Democratic lawmakers vowing to boycott the speech. They charge that Netanyahu's goal is to undermine the president's diplomacy with Iran, and that Republican House Speaker John Boehner invited the Israeli leader to defy and humiliate the White House.

Yet all those objecting to the speech, whether in the United States, or Netanyahu's rivals at home where he faces an election next month, protest that their concern is to guarantee US-Israeli relations on whose strength the very future of Israel is said to hang.

But what all this sound and fury misses is that for the Palestinians there is no meaningful Obama-Netanyahu rift. Indeed US-Israeli relations have never been stronger, nor more damaging to the prospects for peace and justice and for the very survival of the Palestinian people.

Just look at the recent record. Last December, the Palestinian Authority put forward a tepid resolution in the UN Security Council that did little more than repeat long-standing US policy on the outlines of a two-state solution. Obama's UN ambassador Samantha Power marshaled all her resources to defeat it.

She claimed that the resolution was "deeply imbalanced" and took "no account of Israel's legitimate security concerns."

The next day, after disappointed Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas signed the treaty acceding to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Obama's State Department declared itself "deeply troubled," accusing Palestinians of an "escalatory step" that "badly damages the atmosphere with the very people with whom they ultimately need to make peace."

Power said the Palestinian move "really poses a profound threat to Israel."

These words are perverse. Israel's 51-day long attack on Gaza that left more than 2,200 people dead didn't "damage the atmosphere" as far as the Obama administration was concerned, but any Palestinian effort to use international bodies in pursuit of justice and accountability is tantamount to an act of war.

I challenge Ms. Power to go and repeat her words to any of the 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza still living in the damp and freezing rubble of their homes, to the surviving parents of more than 500 children killed in the Israeli attack, or to the thousands who will live with lifelong injuries."

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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